“ something’s looming in your eyes. “
SLØR & BRIDGES WRITING PROMPTS / ACCEPTING
𝙷𝙴 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙺𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝙽𝙾𝚆-𝙲𝙷𝙾𝙺𝙴𝙳 𝚁𝙸𝚅𝙴𝚁 𝙸𝙽 𝚂𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶, the thunder of the water through the gorge, a sound made more of air than water, and the way the stone shook underfoot and yet the folk of the city passed by, utterly undisturbed. He thinks of his mother, bundling him awake and taking him to sleep by a fire on the cliffside in case the waters should rise suddenly in the night. Her natural human fear of the river’s wildness, as she was taught, and the way the elves feared nothing. Why he thinks of her, he cannot say. The Captain is looking down the line at him like a bird of prey.
Some nights hence, he’d burned a hundred ships in harbour under a veil of darkness. Only the cold, bright eye of the moon. Today, some leagues up the coast from that place, the night is moonless and all he needs is to disappear again. It is an act that Longshanks is well-practiced in performing. Perhaps there is no one better in the world, now. Perhaps he is the finest liar living, and this is all that’s left that’s fine within him. It is not so much like lying anymore. Some nights hence, Thorongil burned a hundred ships in harbour, ending a dozen bloody battles before they could begin—but now Thorongil is dead, his small contingent of men returning home safe on their galley, captainless, and Estel slips that man’s body into the slow-moving river at the root of his mind. He lets it sink there to settle undisturbed upon the stone where none will see it, none will smell it, none will know. He lines that man up with the others and, again, he fills the grave.
He thinks of the sea again, of the colours of the flames on the surface of the water. Thinks of returning to Thorongil’s victor’s welcome, his homecoming to his people, beloved, belonging—and Aragorn’s heart thrills with fear.
The Captain sweeps by the line of potential crewmen. When he reaches Estel he stops, his eyes narrow, and Aragorn feels the air-sound of the spray of the river over its banks, the same vapor of the mist of the sea, damp breeze on his face. His clothes are stained with salt. The smell of the fire is still somewhere in his long, wind-torn hair, dark curls crisp with ocean air, fused with the smell of his scalp. He looks the part. Estel looks the part of a pirate.
Before they taught him his name, they taught him the names of the ships of his forebears—he knew them by heart, even before he knew that they were his.
“Something’s looming in your eyes.”
“Something.” Estel agrees simply, and draws his chin down. There is a smear of soot darkening his hairline, and his silver eyes are fever-bright, stinging, as if the smoke was in them still. “Many have said it so—but none has named it yet.”
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